28 November 2011 12:04 PM

The voters love Boris not George (so far)

Two remarkable things happened at the O2 arena yesterday. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga gave Roger Federer a decent game, came at times close to beating him and enlivened proceedings with his natural exuberance.

Secondly during the breaks between end changes, a camera panned the audience and caught a bunch of celebrities in its crosshairs. I think I saw Pippa Middleton and what appeared to be a footballer beloved of parts of London, loathed by the rest.

Then appeared before us the sheepdog visage of the London Mayor, no more acquainted with a hair brush than I am with Christina Aguilera. The Boris haters got off the mark first, with a resolute but lowing booing that rumbled gently round the 16,000 strong crowd like the protestations of a hurd of cows at the first nativity.

But the remarkable thing was that this rumbling raspberry was very quickly drowned out by cheering and clapping from many, many more people. Boris, we know, has always courted a certain sort of low popularity. But it nonetheless remains remarkable that a politician, particularly a Tory one, can command such affection in the current economic climate.

It is anecdotal but, on this basis, re-election should be a formality. The question will then be whether the toff charm will translate up North and put Boris within striking distance of the premiership his friends say he still craves.

I find it hard to believe that David Cameron, or more importantly as far as Boris is concerned, George Osborne would be greeted with spontaneous cheering at a sporting event in London or anywhere else.

Nick Watt over at the Guardian has written an excellent piece on the Chancellor and how his plans for economic revival are inextricably tied up with his personal ambitions to replace david Cameron.

He quotes an ally of Osborne saying:

"For George everything is about preparing for the political armageddon of the return of Boris in 2015. Boris will win re-election as mayor [of London] next year and then sail back into parliament in his last year as mayor at the 2015 general election.

"Cameron will probably stand down in 2018-19. George has to ensure that Boris does not reach the final two in the leadership contest because there is no way he can beat him in the country.

"It will be Boris unless George achieves something that he certainly has not done up until now, and that is to connect with people. He is haughty and that shows."

Osborne has one thing going for him that Bill Clinton would recognise -- the good fortune to be at the heart of, and to some degree in control of, epoch-making events. In the days after 9/11 the former US President was heard to bemoan that George W. Bush was lucky to be tested in the extremis of war, rather than the rather bumptious good times of the 1990s, which 'bonking Bill' so embodied.

Well, to Osborne's set Mr Johnson is 'bonking Boris', a soubriquet earned with the kind of relentless dedication to the task at which even Clinton would raise his hat (or drop his trousers).

Boris may yet have the popular support, but starting with the autumn review tomorrow Osborne has the chance to leave his mark on the world that the Mayoralty of London does not offer. If he seizes it, he not the hero of the O2 should be our next prime minister.

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